Motivological-comparative dictionary of Russian and English household units

The paper discusses a fragment of the Russian and English motivological-comparative dictionary of everyday domestic object lexicon. The dictionary's main task is to give classified information about motivated, half-motivated and non-motivated lexical units and a lexicographical description of these units, such as the type of motivation, the characteristics of motivation and nomination, and lexical processes connected with motivation. The dictionary includes words of the thematic group ''everyday domestic objects.'' The metalanguage data of the compared languages, which were received during psycho-linguistic experiments with native speakers, are used as the main source. Different types of Russian and English dictionaries (etymological, encyclopaedic and linguistic) were used as an additional source. The main unit of the dictionary is the entry, the structure of which shows the common and specific features of the phenomenon of word motivation, based on the data of the considered thematic group. The entry is a table consisting of two parts: the left part contains information about Russian lexical units, the right part - information about English units. The entry also consists of the following zones: capital word, metalanguage data, and zone of interpretation and reference. The interpretation zone gives a description of all structural and semantic characteristics of the compared units: the indication of their motivation, half-motivation or non-motivation, revelation and comparison of the inner forms of the words. The reference contains the etymological data which are used to demonstrate such phenomena as demotivation, remotivation and to prove that the synchronic motivation does not coincide with the diachronic one. According to the data given in the fragment of the motivological-comparative dictionary, Russian and English words relating to everyday domestic objects are characterized by a large amount of inner forms which are not lexicalized or metaphorical. This, in its turn, proves the fact that the inner forms of these everyday domestic object words describe definite characteristics of the objects. The motivological-comparative dictionary of everyday domestic objects provides a wealth of information and a huge variety of source opportunities, and develops the existing base of comparative motivology.

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